Lumiere Press

Kristen Adlhoch

From its earliest incarnations as a paper-based medium,

photography has been closely intertwined with book
publishing. Just five years after William Henry Fox Talbot
patented the first viable positive/negative photographic
process in 1839, he published one of the earliest photography
books. Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature, a six-volume fascicle
published between 1844 and 1846, proposed a variety of uses
for the new medium in the service of science, art, archae-
ology and history, illustrating each example with one of
Talbot’s own tipped-in calotypes. The text of The Pencil
of Nature is pointedly didactic, and the subtext is a clear
defence of the paper calotype against its rival, the French
daguerreotype, a process that was unsuitable for reproduc-
tions of any kind, particularly book illustrations. Indeed,
instead of labelling Talbot as the first person to employ
photographs in the service of a book publication, we might
more accurately describe him as the first person to employ a
book publication in the service of photography.
Reflecting on the oeuvre of contemporary book-
maker and photographer Michael Torosian brings to mind
Talbot’s incunabula. This is not due to any overt similari-
ties between their publications, but because The Pencil of
Nature implies a conviction that Torosian articulates: ‘The
book is the medium of photography.’ This dictum has
proved a successful formula for Torosian’s Lumiere Press 1
– the only fine print book press devoted solely to photog-
raphy – which in 2011 marked both the twenty-fifth anni- came to book-making: frustrated by his lack of input into
versary of its publishing programme (beginning in 1986 the design of a catalogue of his work, he began studying
with Edward Weston: Dedicated to Simplicity [1]) and the release bookbinding at evening classes, and immersed himself in
of its twenty-first title. Beneath the outward simplicity of the community of small presses that existed in Toronto in
Torosian’s statement lies a complex and multifaceted history the late 1970s.
of a hybrid medium – the photography book – that is more Torosian’s artistic vision stretched beyond the ability
than the sum of its parts. In this context, Lumiere Press to reproduce his own images: in photography books, he
stands poised between two different photography book recognised the potential to ‘be a part of the dialogue of my
traditions: on the one hand, that of the hand-printed artists’ medium’. Lumiere Press books are undoubtedly a collabo-
books of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; rative effort between Torosian and the artists he chronicles,
and, on the other hand, the widely produced photography but they are executed through Torosian’s singular aesthetic
books that began to proliferate prior to World War Two. The vision and literary voice, bringing his subjects into a realm
bridge that spans these two genres is modernism. of intimacy rarely broached by other scholars. However,
In the terms of the history of photography, modernism Torosian is not attempting to write a history of photography
signified the rejection of the painterly qualities and subject of the last century; rather, his books elaborate on the story of
matter of pictorialist photography that had predominated in modernist photography. United in their overarching theme
artistic photography in the late nineteenth and early twen- of the investigation of the nature of artistic photography
tieth centuries. Modernist photography practice and theory by examining the work of exceptional individual practi-
between the wars focused on the inherent qualities of the tioners, these books are, in essence, descendents of the great
medium, such as the distortions created by the camera’s modernist traditions of the mid-twentieth century. Printed
optics; the effect of different perspectives; and the detail and in editions ranging from 150 to 250, each book is a unique
sharpness of the photographic negative/print. The compat- object of great beauty, executed with incredible workman-
ibility of books and photographs logically begins with their ship and painstaking effort.
mutual flatness and paper bases. Photographs, as Torosian The transition to modernism in photography is one that
points out, unlike media such as painting and sculpture, can is paralleled by the evolution of the photography book itself.
be printed in such a way that the reproductions remain true As Talbot predicted in The Pencil of Nature, photographs were
to the aesthetic (and, at times, even the size) of the original put to all manner of documentary uses in the late nine-
print. It was by way of his own photography that Torosian teenth century. Photography simultaneously fuelled and

24 Parenthesis 24
fulfilled the empirical aspirations of the Victorian era, but
these were not the only uses of the medium. A concurrent
interest in photography’s artistic possibilities arose amongst
certain photographers, who became increasingly dedicated
to exploring the expressive qualities of the fine photographic
print. Artistic ambitions, combined with new photome-
chanical print processes such as photogravures, collotypes
and Woodburytypes, gave rise to a tradition of books and
periodicals in which the photographs themselves became
the subject matter of the publications in which they were
printed. The genre reached a high water mark with the peri-
odical Camera Work (1903–1917). Published through Alfred
Stieglitz’s gallery 291 in New York, Camera Work combined
articles by artists and art critics with hand-pulled gravures of
both historic and contemporary photographs and modern
art. The editors of Camera Work strove to emulate the print
qualities of the original photographs, in large part because
their journal was the most powerful vehicle in favour of 2
photography-as-art. Issues of Camera Work are exquisite in
design and execution because they had to be, at a time when
it was necessary to demonstrate that photography was a bona
fide artistic medium.
The reproductions in Lumiere Press’s books are produced
with a similar concern for the original print to that found
in Camera Work. Torosian employs stochastic offset lithog-
raphy and an exacting eye in order to reproduce faith-
fully all manner of photographic processes, such as Edward
Steichen’s rare mixed-process palladium prints made
between 1916 and 1923 which are reproduced in Steichen:
Eduard et Voulangis (2011) [2]. Frequently, one or more of the
images (often hand-printed gelatin silver prints) are tipped-
in to the book’s pages, accentuating the object-quality of the
photographs. This precision fosters an authentic connection
with the photographer’s original artistic intent. Indeed, the
reproductions in a Lumiere Press book are perhaps the only
feature to benefit significantly from modern technology: the
other elements, from casting, setting and printing the lead
type to hand stitching and binding the books, are executed 3
using techniques and equipment that roughly date from
the 1920s. Torosian selects all the design and composi- photographers of the importance of sequencing. The juxta-
tional features of each book – from typefaces to paper stock position of photographs influences the viewer’s under-
to binding and covers – with care and consideration. ‘The standing and interpretation of both individual prints and
books are true to their technological DNA,’ says Torosian, the photography book as a whole, and is epitomised by
but the design elements are never predetermined: intuition (and, many would argue, perfected in) Robert Frank’s The
and instinct play significant roles in his aesthetic choices. Americans (1958). In the mid-twentieth century, at a time
The final issue of Camera Work, which was devoted to the when few galleries were exhibiting photographs on their
modernist work of the photographs of the young photog- walls, books like The Americans disseminated photography to
rapher Paul Strand, was published in 1917 and is generally a wider audience, but with minimal emphasis on the object-
viewed as the defining moment when modernism overtook quality of photographic prints themselves.
pictorialism as the dominant movement in artistic photog- The subject matter of Lumiere Press’s catalogue, which
raphy. This coincided with an increase in the production at first glance may appear widely varied, is firmly rooted
of more widely distributed photographic publications in in the aesthetic tradition out of which modernist photog-
the late 1920s, which resulted in part from improvements raphy books were born. Great names from the history of
in offset printing technology that allowed black and white the photography canon, such as Paul Strand (Orgeval, 1990),
photographs to be more easily reproduced in combina- Aaron Siskind (The Siskind Variations, 1990), Lewis Hine
tion with text, albeit often with less fidelity to the original (Ellis Island, 1995) [3], and Paul Caponigro (On Prior Lane: A
print. These books were part of a trend towards modernist Firefly’s Light, 2008), appear as subjects alongside Weston
photography books, which replaced the hand-printed and Steichen. The publications The Ninth Street Show (1987),
fine press standards of earlier publications in exchange for Toronto Suite (1989), The Witkin Gallery 25 (1994) and An
wider distribution and the ability to focus on the book as American Gallery (2007) [4] examine the legacies of influen-
a medium of photography in itself. This kind of photog- tial art dealers who nurtured and supported, both spiritually
raphy book also bolstered an increasing awareness amongst and financially, the artistic communities of their respective

Parenthesis 24 25
 cities. Torosian has not neglected his personal artistic prac-
tice, either. The publications Aurora (1987) and Anatomy
(1993) arose from Torosian’s own photographic projects, and
his series of portraits accompanies Toronto Suite (1989).
While the design, the photographs and the hand finishing
are critical components of every Lumiere Press publication,
the books are nonetheless never merely aesthetic ornaments:
the accompanying text is always of the highest literary stan-
dard. If the photographer is living, the text often takes the
form of an interview conducted by Torosian, such as in the
cases of Dave Heath (Extempore, 1988 [5], and Korea, 2004),
Frederick Sommer (The Constellations that Surround Us, 1992
[6]), Gordon Parks (Harlem, 1997 [7]) and Edward Burtynsky
(Residual Landscapes, 2001 [8]). In addition to countless
hours devoted to conducting archival research, Torosian
frequently spends days speaking with his subjects, collecting
hundreds of hours of audio recordings. As an interviewer,
4 Torosian’s voice is muted but always present, influenced in
tone and tenor by the interviews of The Paris Review and The
New Yorker. Through his clear respect for and rapport with
his subjects, Torosian elicits remarkable insights, coaxing
his subjects to reveal themselves through their recollections
and in their own voices. In cases where the photographer is
no longer alive, reminiscences from an intimate relation or
friend provide the necessary insight to evoke the personality
behind the artist. Even decades after their deaths, Lumiere
Press books about Edward Weston, Paul Strand and Edward
Steichen provide insights into the art of monumental figures
in twentieth-century photography and offer valuable schol-
arship to the history of photography.
Along with the release of Steichen: Eduard et Voulangis and
the Press’s twenty-fifth anniversary, the year 2011 presented
another remarkable occasion for Lumiere Press when the
Department of Special Collections of the University of St
Andrews Library in Scotland acquired the last complete set
of titles in the Lumiere Press archive. The acquisition marks
a new initiative between the Rare Books and Photography
collections at the University of St Andrews to build upon
an already impressive archive of photography books that
5 stretches back to The Pencil of Nature itself. As reproduc-
ible media, book-making and photography are analo-
gous in many ways, and perhaps have never been more so
than in our current age of digital printing and publishing.
Photographs and books can be mass-produced in large
quantities or hand made as limited edition originals; both
are available for consumption in hard copy or electronically;
and both can be either ubiquitous and commonplace, or
unique and irreplaceable. This acquisition both recognises
and reinforces the historical link between these two forms
of creative expression, while pointing towards a renewed
interest among book-makers, publishers, photographers
and collectors to strengthen and sustain this close associa-
tion in an increasingly digitally oriented future.
Every book published by Lumiere Press exists as a
unique object of artisanal skill and great beauty. Although
the themes addressed by these books may be universal, the
journey is nonetheless an intensely personal one, clearly
derived in large part from Torosian’s own expertise as a
photographer and connoisseur of photography, but also
fuelled by his intellectual and artistic curiosity. Torosian
casts and sets every letter, punctuation mark and space in
6 every book he publishes, a process he likens to ‘an archi-

26 Lumiere Press
 7

tect setting every brick in a building he’s designed’. There

is no doubt that Torosian has made great contributions
to photography scholarship. But with his work through
Lumiere Press, he also continues to influence and trans-
form the very specialised medium of fine press photography
books, of which he is an uncontested master.

www.lumierepress.com

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